Old Age and Other Afflictions

I've just had a humbling reminder that I'm not 19 anymore.

Carrie, Annie and I rolled out of bed at 5:23am this morning. It was a long, long night. To start, Irun is celebrating their saint days this week and Saturday through Tuesday were guaranteed to be a non-stop party. As we arrived into Irun last night, we kept hearing cannon fire (or ETA blowing up a pipe bomb - we weren't exactly sure) coming from downtown. As we got closer, we saw hundreds of Basque men dressed in traditional Basque clothing: white shirts and pants, and a red tie and beret. And then we saw the cannon. Because we're tourists and have to document EVERYTHING, we had to take pictures. And then the cannon went off again. I screamed, Carrie jumped, and Annie just cracked up laughing, as did all of the Spaniards standing around us. I had to get out of there before they shot off the cannon again, so we continued down the street. We found the pilgrims' albergue, met the adorable hospitalera who runs the albergue, and after dropping off our stuff, went in search of dinner. We planned on an early dinner that would leave us enough time to get back to the albergue, shower, and be in bed asleep at a reasonable enough hour that wouldn't make 5:30 hurt TOO badly.

Right.

We got the dinner part taken care of, and even had time for some gelato. We even got the showers out of the way by a reasonable hour, despite a second helping of dessert (cake... yum) forced upon us by the absolutely precious hospitalera who wouldn't hear of us walking out of the dining room without a good sized chunk, and conversation with the Parisian staying with us for the night who had already walked 500km from Paris to Irun, and has 530km ahead of her to Santiago. She's our new hero.

We forgot to factor in the soccer game.

Annie lives in Germany and had an interest in the outcome of the Eurocup, as did Carrie and I, but we knew there was no way we'd be able to hang out in a bar and catch the entire game and still be able to function at 5:30 this morning. We were responsible and decided to skip it.

Our Spanish friends would have none of it.

We could handle the shouts of "GOOOOOOAL!" eminating from the bars along the block. It was sort of cute. We could almost deal with the people running up and down the streets occasionally shouting "Arriba España!" immediately after the game. We were happy for them. At 2am, all hell broke loose. We were suddenly displeased. Carrie and Annie heard the people screaming in the streets, the bottles breaking, and the general chaos that came with drunk Spaniards in Irun who had just beat Germany in the Eurocup and didn't have to go to work Monday morning because of the holiday. All I heard were the motorcycles. Every last motorcycle in Irun sped up and down the street in front of our albergue revving their engines, peeling out, and honking their horns. I've had some boyfriends who snore loud enough to wake the dead, but NEVER in my life have I ever wanted a pair of earplugs as badly as I did last night.

But we survived. After a total of about 3 hours of sleep, we woke up when we said we would, dragged ourselves together enough to enjoy the breakfast spread provided by our sleepy eyed hospitalera, who got out of bed at an ungodly hour just to feed us before we started on our hike. We were walking by 6:15am, and immediately noticed that a large part of this trip is going to revolve around our ability to find yellow arrows. We were pretty successful today. We walked out of Irun, over a river, through the woods, and then up the mountain. And higher up the mountain. And then the mountain just wouldn't stop. And boy, was that mountain steep. And then we had to come back down the mountain. That sounds easy, doesn't it? Not when it's STRAIGHT down. And then my last Camino experience came flooding back to me. The sore feet, the bruise/friction burns on my hips from the waistbelt of my backpack, the sunburns, the screaming knees. Holy cow. I forgot about the screaming knees.

But my God. If you could have seen what the Atlantic Ocean looks like from the top of that mountain that we were on today, you'd quit your job and walk until your feet fell off just to get to us. I've never seen anything more incredible in my life. Carrie and Annie hurt just about as badly as I do (though SuperAnnie a little less... I feel like her marathoning is coming in handy here), but tomorrow is going to be just as gorgeous, and we can't wait. I may not be 19 anymore, but if my 80 year old knees can get this 26 year old body to Santiago, I'm going to have some bad ass pictures when I get home.

So don't worry about us. We're alive and in San Sebastian at an albergue enjoying the sun and the sound of the beach down the street. A little sore, but nothing that a good dinner and shower (and let me assure you, we're in desperate, desperate need of the latter) can't fix. Miss you guys!